[Updated] Xbox Live Back In Business, Outage Due To Routine Maintenance

Update #2: All Xbox Live services are back online (though it appears that Minecraft issues still persist). In a statement provided to Game Informer, a Microsoft representative informed us that the outage was due to routine maintenance. Some individuals had claimed that hacking brought the service down yesterday. Microsoft assures us that this is false.

Update #1: Microsoft has sounded the all-clear with regard to sign-in issues. However, it seems that other parts of the service are experiencing problems. According to Microsoft's Xbox Live status page,

"We are aware of an issue members are having sending and receiving messages, seeing friend's statuses, sending or receiving game and party invites, and accepting friend requests on Xbox LIVE. We are currently working as fast as we can to get this issue fixed, thank you for your patience during this time and we will update you with any new information we receive."

[Original Story]

My own attempts to sign into Xbox Live have proven difficult, and the official Xbox support Twitter account tweeted that is working to resolve the issue.